Measures of Central Tendency, Dispersion and

Association
MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY
Numerical tools that help us understand the
middle of a distribution of scores.
1. MEAN – the average score in a distribution.
2. MEDIAN – the middle score in a distribution.
3. MODE – the most common score in a
distribution. There could be more
than one mode, or no mode at
all.
Which is a better measure of central tendency?
When there are a few extreme scores (outliers)
in a distribution it is better to use the median or
mode instead of the mean.
Normal distribution – Mean, Median and Mode are
equal
Skewed distribution – Mode is always at the
highest point of the distribution, mean is lower than
the mode or median. Median will fall between the
mode and the mean.
MEASURES OF VARIABILITY
Numerical tools that help us understand the
spread of a distribution of scores and provide us
with more information about individual differences.
1. RANGE – The difference between the highest
and the lowest score in a distribution. This
must be used carefully since the low and high
scores do not accurately represent the entire
distribution.
2. VARIANCE – tells us whether individual
scores tend to be similar or substantially
different from the mean. It is the average
squared deviation around the mean.
MEASURES OF VARIABILITY
3. STANDARD DEVIATION – is the square root of
the average deviation around the mean. It
gives approximation of how much a typical
score is above or below the average score.
MEASURES OF RELATIONSHIP
Numerical tools that help us understand how
two sets of data are related.
CORRELATION COEFFICIENT – a statistic that
describes the relationship between two
distributions of scores.
1. POSITIVE correlation
2. NEGATIVE correlation
PEARSON PRODUCT MOMENT COEFFICIENT –
a common technique in computing correlations.